Imam Receives Death Threats for Meeting IDF Spokesperson

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Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who met with IDF Spokesperson Manelis and posted the historic meeting on social media, has been facing death threats.

French-Tunisian Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, who met IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis last week and posted the historic meeting on social media, has been facing death threats.

Chalghoumi, a moderate Muslim leader known for his criticism of radical Islam and fundamentalism, met with Manelis in France, and the two stated that they “have a common understanding of terrorism and its dangers.”

The clip sparked a backlash from other Muslim leaders who condemned Chalghoumi’s friendship towards Israel, while others issued a string of threats. The imam filed a complaint with the police, Israel’s Ynet news reported Sunday.

Chalghoumi, who has visited the Jewish state, is a known defender of Israel and was previously threatened for his stance.

In May 2006, his home was ransacked following a Holocaust memorial ceremony that he conducted in Drancy. His cooperation with Jewish organizations in France has won him the epithet “Imam of the Jews.”

Chalghoumi has spoken out against political Islam, saying that Muslim extremists such as the Islamic State (ISIS) emerged “from our own countries, from among our sons.”

Chalghoumi, who is the imam of the Drancy mosque in Seine-Saint-Denis, said that people who left to join ISIS in Syria and Iraq must not be allowed to return. “They are killers,” he stated.

“As a result of the brutal crimes they committed, they have become barbaric,” he said in a February interview.